A Flying Experience Without the Freedom
There is an argument to be made in modern gaming that our games have, once again, become very hard.
Since the monumental success of titles like Elden Ring and the popularity of revival experiences such as Ninja Gaiden, there has been a significant push to make hardcore, punishing mechanics in vogue again. There are countless Souls-like games and brutally tough platformers that are doing great numbers and receiving high praise from critics.
But on the complete other end of that spectrum, there exists a large group of gamers who just want a relaxing, zen-like experience to unwind with after a long day. This is precisely the niche where the Aery series has been so prolific and successful.
Windborn – Echoes of the Night is a new series, but it’s by the very same developers and team. It also features a bird and flying, but it carries a different name. So, the big question is: what is it like, and where on that spectrum does it land?
Leaving Calmness Behind
There have been over 20 games released on Xbox in the Aery series, a truly staggering number. For the most part, they have provided similar and slightly different experiences based on a core concept. If you ask someone to describe an Aery game, people would invariably describe it as a calming, meditative experience of flying a bird through some pretty, often abstract, environments. They are defined by their complete lack of stress. You normally have to hit a number of checkpoints to progress, and sometimes there is a story, while other times it’s a journey through time or the history of the world.
Windborn immediately breaks this mould. It doesn’t have any discernible story or narrative, except for the basic premise that you are one bird in a flock, flying together, and you absolutely cannot be left behind.
Over 11 chapters, you fly your bird through a series of checkpoints and booster rings, all to get to the end of the chapter and then start a new one. So, what is different from the familiar Aery franchise? Well, first, there are other birds with you, forming a small flock. The game introduces a new, harsh time-limit mechanic: if you lag behind or go off-course to explore, and the other birds reach the final checkpoint before you, a timer appears. You have just ten seconds to get there, or you fail and have to restart the entire level from the beginning.
Flawed Incentives and Pointless Collisions
This design extends to collisions. If you accidentally hit another bird, the game puts you back a few checkpoints. This mechanic is, frankly, a bit pointless, because the setback is so significant that there is no way you are going to catch up in time to finish the level before the 10-second timer triggers. You might as well just pause and manually restart the level yourself.
The levels are built around two types of markers. There are the main checkpoint circles you must go through, which are designed like bright bullseyes. Then, there are single-line circles that I think are meant to be booster rings to increase your speed on the journey. The game doesn’t really explain.
However, after a few chapters of trying to meticulously fly through them, I just started to ignore them completely, much like the AI birds seemed to be doing. This had no negative effect; I didn’t seem to lose any speed. In fact, by taking a more direct route and ignoring these ‘boosters’, I think I got to the end of the level a bit quicker, which seems to defeat their entire purpose.
The Loss of Zen
This whole concept of racing through the air with a strict time limit attached is the core difference from the Aery series. Everything else, fundamentally, is the same, including how the bird moves and controls. But this one change completely shatters the original formula. With the Aery series, the main selling point – the entire reason for its existence, one might argue – was the feeling of calmness and the freedom to explore the beautiful, strange worlds at your own pace.
I am afraid those elements are completely lost in Windborn. The stress of the time limit and the need to follow a strict checkpoint path removes any desire to explore. And once that relaxing element is gone, I don’t quite know what you’re left with. It’s a checkpoint racer that isn’t really a racer, as you’re just following a pre-determined flock. There isn’t any story to latch onto, just the singular, repetitive goal of keeping up with the other birds.
Abrupt Endings
There are 11 chapters in total, and for achievement hunters, you get an easy 1000 Gamerscore just by completing all of them; the structure feeling abrupt and unfinished. In fact, finish the final level, and there isn’t any conclusion, no “well done” screen, no credits. You are just unceremoniously booted straight back to the main menu, as if you’d just quit the level. Bafflingly, it didn’t even load up chapter 11 for me automatically after I finished chapter 10; I had to select it manually from the menu. After finishing that, I was again booted back to the main menu. It’s a very strange and unsatisfying experience.
On the positive side, the main mechanics of flying do work, and the bird feels responsive. You can invert the controls if you prefer, which is a mercy, even though this setting resets itself, forcing you to re-apply it every time you load up the game.
Windborn – Echoes of the Night’s visuals are the usual affair for this development team. Each chapter takes you to a different environment, but this time, there is a consistent horror theme. So, you might be flying around a dark, spooky castle surrounded by bad weather, or you might be in some sort of hellish landscape with strange, demonic statues dotted around. Other times, it’s just a bleak bit of land with some ruins on it.
The problem is, you don’t really get to see much of this environmental design, as you are so focused on hitting the next checkpoint to avoid a restart. Furthermore, when you go through these checkpoints, the game does a sort of heightened blur effect for a few moments, which actively obscures your view. This means you don’t get to see any of the detail in the landscapes they’ve built.
Compounding this bizarre mismatch is the soundtrack, which consists of 1980s rock tracks and ballads. These play on a continuous loop, no matter what chapter you’re on or how far you are into a level.
A Half-Baked Formula That Flies Wide of the Mark
I have grown quite fond of the Aery series over the years. Some of the entries have been genuinely interesting, and others have been a bit more mundane, but I could always appreciate the core design pillar: the calmness of their gameplay loop.
Windborn – Echoes of the Night has none of that trademark Aery calmness. Its entire focus is on relentlessly hitting checkpoints against a strict time limit. To be honest, the whole package feels a bit half-baked. It’s a real shame.
Important Links
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/windborn-echoes-of-the-night/9NZD6NNTHW48/0010
